I've always liked Westerns that take place in non-traditional settings. This novel certainly fits that description. U.S. Marshal Morgan Kane is sent to the wilds of the Yucatan Peninsula to rescue a group of American scientists who have been trapped there by a uprising by the local Indians. Naturally Kane runs into a lot of trouble along the way, including some colorful pirates.
This is another entry in the long-running series by Norwegian author Kjell Hallbing, writing under the pseudonym Louis Masterson. More than eighty Morgan Kane novels were originally published in Norway, and a couple dozen of them were reprinted in England by Corgi Books. I've picked up a few over the years, and now thanks to my friend Jan Pettersen I've been able to acquire a few more. Hallbing had a very distinctive style, and according to everything I've read, translator Phil Newth captures it accurately. The action scenes are very well done, and Morgan Kane has to be the most angst-ridden Western hero I've ever encountered, enduring all sorts of physical and psychological torment in the course of the books. They're off-beat enough that it took me a while to get used to them, but now I've become quite a fan and am looking forward to reading the others I have on hand.
5 comments:
I read one that took place on a 19th century cattle ranch in Hawaii. It was different.
Kane gets raped in one of the books. I don't know if this happens to any other western series hero.
Actually, Juri, Kane does not get raped - he kills the men who try it. Nevertheless, just putting the "hero" in danger of being sodomized is something that you don't read everyday in westerns.
Thanks, Anssi, for correcting me! Even after all these years all the people around me telling how great these books are, I still haven't read any of them. So I went over my limits when I tried to tell what's happened in one of the books. Sorry!
I'm one of those people who wish more than 41 were published in English. As James says Kane sure does suffer in these books...
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